Cardinal Pedro Barreto received death threats and harassment during his almost 20-year campaign against a US mining company’s operations in the Andes A Peruvian cardinal who receiv…

Cardinal Pedro Barreto received death threats and harassment during his almost 20-year campaign against a US mining company’s operations in the Andes A Peruvian cardinal who received a barrage of death threats when he challenged the firm behind a toxic smelter has called a $150m (£111m) out-of-court settlement to more than 1,000 people who were allegedly poisoned by the plant as children “a historic milestone”. Cardinal Pedro Barreto, 82, was in Rome meeting Pope Leo XIV and other cardinals in June when he received news that the firm that ran the smelter, the Doe Run Company, a subsidiary of Renco Group, would pay $150m to 1,373 Peruvians who have suffered health impacts since childhood. The news came as Barreto – the former archbishop of Huancayo, a city in the Peruvian Andes – was preparing to travel to the US to testify in the first of four civil trials in St Louis, Missouri, as part of a 19-year legal battle against Doe Run, which is owned by US billionaire Ira Rennert, who also serves as chair of the Renco Group. “This is a historic milestone,” said Barreto, speaking to the Guardian. “But this long-awaited justice doesn’t solve the problem faced by many children who were personally affected, especially neurologically. The money will not compensate for the harm they have suffered, but it is a sign that justice has been served.” Barreto led a nearly two-decade campaign to hold the US company to account for the severe health impacts on the population of the Andean town of La Oroya, which the Blacksmith Institute, a US-based environmental NGO now known as Pure Earth, in 2007 listed as one of the world’s 10 most polluted places. The settlement brought to a close one of the longest-running civil lawsuits against a multinational corporation in one country for environmental pollution or toxic exposure that caused injury or damage in another country. Schlichter Bogard, a St Louis-based law firm, alleged that Doe Run failed to reduce lead emissions at the Peruvian multi-metal smelter, resulting in permanent injuries and harm. Doe Run Resources Corporation, which has its headquarters in St Louis, did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.